Mahmoud Abbas' leadership term is extended

Palestinian Authority president to keep reins on West Bank at least 6 months till election is held

December 16, 2009|By Edmund Sanders, Tribune Newspapers

RAMALLAH, West Bank — With a giant poster of deceased leader Yasser Arafat smiling over them, members of the Palestine Liberation Organization's central council gathered here Tuesday to indefinitely extend President Mahmoud Abbas' term until credible elections can be held.

The extension, expected to be formally approved Wednesday, should provide a degree of short-term stability to the fractured Palestinian movement. But for some, the stopgap measure only papers over an emerging PLO leadership crisis that could become yet another obstacle to peace talks.

"We're at a political dead end," said Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the central council and political adversary of Abbas. "There is a serious political crisis."

He questioned whether Fatah, the dominant PLO political party that administers parts of the West Bank, or rival Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, are serious about holding elections.

"They are happy with the status quo because both have concentrated the power and are able to practice authority without accountability," Barghouti said.

Abbas, who was elected Palestinian Authority president after Arafat's death in 2004, was supposed to face re-election next month. The vote was postponed, for the second time in a year, after Hamas said it would forbid polling in Gaza. The Islamist-run party, which refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence, seized control of the coastal strip in 2007, spurring a collapse of the power-sharing accord with Fatah.

With Wednesday's expected endorsement by the central council, Abbas, 74, will keep the reins in the West Bank for at least another six months, by which time Palestinians hope to settle the Fatah-Hamas split.

Abbas has said he does not want to run in the next race. Those close to him say he's frustrated by the lack of progress in peace talks. But many PLO leaders believe he can be persuaded to run again.